Behavioural Innovation and Brand Performance of Digital Credit Providers In Kenya

ABSTRACT : While much of the innovation literature emphasises new products, processes, and strategies, an organisation’s capacity to translate any of these into market advantage ultimately depends on the people who implement them. This study examined the effect of behavioural innovation, understood as employees’ and organisations’ readiness to accept, adjust to, and champion change, on the brand performance of digital credit providers (DCPs) in Kenya. Using a descriptive, cross-sectional, quantitative design, data were collected through a structured, closed-ended, five-point Likert questionnaire administered to marketing managers across all 126 digital credit providers registered in Kenya, following a census approach. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and simple linear regression in SPSS version 28. Behavioural innovation was found to be highly practised among the sampled firms, with a construct mean of 4.260 (SD = 0.956) across eleven items capturing change acceptance, change-related effort, optimism under adversity, and managerial-system innovation. Behavioural innovation was strongly and significantly correlated with brand performance (r = .903, p < .001) and, in a simple regression model, emerged as the single strongest predictor of brand performance among all innovation dimensions examined in the parent study, explaining 81.5 percent of the variance in brand performance (β = .903, R² = .815, F(1, 102) = 448.035, p < .001). The null hypothesis that behavioural innovation has no significant effect on brand performance was rejected. The study concludes, consistent with the Dynamic Capabilities Framework, that employee adaptability, change-readiness, and managerial innovativeness function as the human mechanism through which other forms of innovation are converted into market-facing brand value, and that behavioural innovation therefore warrants proportionately greater managerial attention than other innovation dimensions. Recommendations include establishing structured change-management programmes, embedding adaptability and entrepreneurial initiative into recruitment and performance-appraisal criteria, linking recognition and compensation to demonstrated behavioural adoption of innovation, and requiring visible leadership modelling of target behaviours.

KEYWORDS: behavioural innovation, brand performance, digital credit providers, dynamic capabilities, Kenya